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In Christ, Mark
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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
Moses turned and went down the mountain with the two tablets of the Testimony in his hands. They were inscribed on both sides, front and back. The tablets were the work of God; the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tablets.
When Joshua heard the noise of the people shouting, he said to Moses, "There is the sound of war in the camp."
Moses replied: "It is not the sound of victory, it is not the sound of defeat; it is the sound of singing that I hear."
When Moses approached the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, his anger burned and he threw the tablets out of his hands, breaking them to pieces at the foot of the mountain. And he took the calf they had made and burned it in the fire; then he ground it to powder, scattered it on the water and made the Israelites drink it.
He said to Aaron, "What did these people do to you, that you led them into such great sin?"
"Do not be angry, my lord," Aaron answered. "You know how prone these people are to evil. They said to me, 'Make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don't know what has happened to him.' So I told them, 'Whoever has any gold jewelry, take it off.' Then they gave me the gold, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf!"
Moses saw that the people were running wild and that Aaron had let them get out of control and so become a laughingstock to their enemies.
Exodus 32:15-25
This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.
Have you ever been around someone who just couldn’t take responsibility for something when they did wrong?
You know, the person who will blame everything and everyone except themselves, often willing to bend and twist a story so it doesn’t appear that they were in error.
Or maybe you’ve had an experience with someone who would implicate someone else in a heartbeat if it might deflect the attention away from them. These are the people who won’t hesitate to throw someone under the bus if it means they might be spared. Call it, unethical self preservation.
Well, in today’s scripture passage from Exodus, chapter 32, we see a person like this in the way of Aaron, the brother of Moses. As we have already studied, he was the man who was pre-selected by God to be the high priest of the tabernacle that would be built as soon as Moses returned from Mount Sinai with God’s instructions.
In other words, Aaron was going to be God’s top spiritual leader, something that seemed to be misaligned with his actual behavior. For we know about his actions while his brother Moses was meeting with God for forty days and nights at the top of Mount Sinai, how he didn’t even do as much as rebuke the Israelites when they proposed making an idol to worship. Instead, he actively participated in the sinful act, collecting the Israelites’ gold earrings before using them to make a golden calf. In essence, the people of Israel wanted to turn away from the Lord to worship false gods and Aaron did nothing to stop them. That made him as much a part of the problem as the people he was expected to lead spiritually.
Well, as Moses finishes up with God, we read where he starts down the mountain with Joshua, carrying the stone tablets that God had written the Ten Commandments on with His finger. And as the two men descend, we read where they heard "the noise of the people shouting" which led Joshua to believe that there was “the sound of war in the camp." Moses knew that something else was going on after hearing about it from God, telling Joshua that what they were hearing was “more the sound of singing” than that of victory or defeat.
The scriptures tell us that as Moses drew nearer to the Israelite camp, his "anger burned" as he observed the golden calf on the altar and the people dancing around it.
How angry was he?
So maddened that he "threw the (stone) tablets out of his hands, breaking them to pieces at the foot of the mountain." The Israelites had completely violated God and you’ll remember in yesterday’s message that He actually wanted to destroy them. Now Moses, the one who had interceded and saved the people of Israel from complete destruction, had destroyed the tablets containing the commands that God had given, just as the people of Israel had shattered their sworn covenant with their Lord through their sinful, ungodly behavior.
We also read where Moses broke up the idol worship party the Israelites were having by taking "the calf they had made" and burning "it in the fire" before grinding “it to powder”, putting it in water, and making the people drink it.
I’m not sure what gold-laced water might taste like but it couldn’t have been good, probably just as bad as the taste they had left in God’s mouth.
And so with the tablets containing the commandments destroyed and the people forced to drink the product of their sin, Moses then turned to the next matter of business which involved confronting the one who was left to lead the people in his absence, his brother Aaron.
Now surely Aaron had to know he was in deep trouble as Moses sharply seeks an explanation for his actions, asking:
"What did these people do to you, that you led them into such great sin?"
Through his words, Moses thought that someone surely had to have threatened Aaron, leading to his actions. He doesn’t show any indication of an assumption that Aaron was actually complicit in it all.
Now the spotlight was squarely on Aaron and he could have easily taken personal responsibility and accountability, saying:
"The people were demanding me to make the idol. I was afraid of them, afraid that they might harm me if I didn’t comply with their wishes. So I did what they told me to do. It was wrong. I should have just stood firm and denied their request, staying obedient to the covenant and God’s commands. If I had, none of this would have happened and so please punish me and spare the others."
Unfortunately, we know he didn’t say this or anything like it. For instead of issuing an apology and repenting of his sin, Aaron fed Moses excuses, saying:
"Do not be angry, my lord. You know how prone these people are to evil."
Here we find Aaron not hesitate to throw the Israelites "under the bus." He wasn’t the problem. It was all on the people of Israel because they were prone to be evil.
And then he continued:
"They said to me, 'Make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don't know what has happened to him.'"
Yes, the Israelites asked Aaron to make the idol for them but that didn’t mean that he had to do it, but as he goes on, he testifies that he did.
"So I told them, 'Whoever has any gold jewelry, take it off.' Then they gave me the gold, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf!"
This is where Aaron’s story really comes off the rails, becoming completely unbelievable. For he expected Moses to buy that what happened was all magic. Aaron tried to have his brother believe that he had nothing to do with making the calf. He just tossed the gold in the fire and...poof...out came a perfectly crafted golden calf, fully suitable for worship.
It was an amazing lie but as we see, Moses wasn’t buying it. For we read where Moses saw “the people were running wild” because “Aaron had let them get out of control”, making them a “laughingstock to their enemies" and so he placed accountability where it needed to be, firmly on the leader. It was Aaron who had "let them get out of control" which made it clear that he was responsible for the way things unfolded. All he had to do was what was right, leading the people of Israel away from sin by doing all that God had commanded but he didn’t.
Friends, if we’re honest, I think we might see a glimpse of ourselves in Aaron, just as we have seen comparisons to every other key figure to date in the Old Testament. For in the end translation, they are people just like us, people who try and live our lives while struggling against the sin that rages within us. And as hard as we try to spiritually succeed, we will also experience times when we fall and fail.
When that happens, we have to learn from the error of Aaron, not making excuses for our transgressions but taking full credit for what we have done, repenting from our wrongs, and then allowing God to forgive and restore us.
He expects accountability.
Amen.
In Christ,
Mark
PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it. Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.
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